It is known in the art to provide a coolant jacketed cylinder liner for diesel engines, and particularly for two cycle diesel engines as manufactured for use in railroad locomotives and other applications by the Electro-Motive Division of General Motors Corporation. The liner includes a ring of air inlet ports between upper and lower ends for admitting air charges into the cylinder and scavenging exhaust gases out through valves in an associated cylinder head when an associated piston is near its bottom dead center position.
Coolant jackets are provided above and below the inlet ports and are connected by passages through bridges extending longitudinally between the ports for guiding the piston and associated compression rings past the intake port area. The jackets carry coolant, which may be treated water, a mixture of water and antifreeze or any suitable fluid coolant, from an inlet in the lower jacket to the upper jacket and out through openings in a cylinder head seat rim to an associated cylinder head for carrying away excess heat from the liner, piston and cylinder head. Such liners were at an earlier period made as unitary castings with the coolant jackets integrally formed. Subsequently, the castings were modified to delete the outer jacket walls to provide better control and inspection of the internal coolant jacket passages. Steel jackets are welded around the liner to enclose the upper and lower jackets.
As the sizes of the liner bores and the power of the engines were increased, a problem developed of cracking of the cylinder wall of the liner adjacent the stud bosses in the head seat rim at the top of the liner where studs are mounted for securing the liner to a cylinder head. This problem was overcome by adding cast radial ribs in the water jacket, spaced around the top of the liner at the locations of the cylinder head stud bosses. The ribs extend downward from the cylinder head seat rim and angle radially downward from a depending outer wall, to which the upper cylinder jacket is welded, to an upper portion of the cylinder wall, which also forms the inner wall of the upper cylinder jacket. These ribs strengthened the liner cylinder wall at the stud boss locations and overcame the cracking problem.